ABSTRACT
There is currently immense interest in the development of nanostructured material (NSMs) for a wide variety of applications, and these materials offer exciting new challenges and opportunities in all the major branches of science and technology.[1] It is widely recognized that reductions in the size of components have an influence on their interfacial interactions, and this factor can, in turn, enhance the material properties to an considerable extent.[2] Consequently, it is also possible to develop materials that are completely discontinuous, that is, which contain both organic and inorganic phases. Such materials exhibit nonlinear changes in properties with respect to composites that are made up of the same phases. This chapter focuses mainly on the classification of NSMs such as zero-dimensional (polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane or POSS), one-dimensional (CNT, sepiolite), and two-dimensional (clay) nanostructure materials and on the recent developments in EVA nanocomposites (Figure 1).
